Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Ey habîbim didi her kimse ki cânân sana
Ne ‘aceb virmedi bin şevkıle bir cân sana
Ey ‘azîzim sana cân teslîm idenler çokdur
Biri oldur kim olup Ka‘bede kurbân sana
Nice meh-pâresin ey yâr-ı dil-ârâ güzelim
Müşterî mihr-i hüveydâ meh-i tâbân sana
Zülf-i tarrâr senin gamze-i ‘ayyâr senin
Çeşm-i sehhâr senin ey kamu hayrân sana
‘Âlemi yakdı gözün yıkdı perîşân itdi
Fitnelik bahşdur ey âfet-i devrân sana
Her demin mürde-i sad-sâl ki ihyâ eyler
Nice cân virmeyelim ey leb-i handân sana
Keremi var Nigârî dil-i mecrûhuna yâr
Derdini virdi kamu eyledi dermân sana

In English

1. O my beloved, it would be strange if everyone who calls you "cânân" (my soul) did not give you a soul with a thousand ardours.

2. O my dear one, those who surrender their souls to you are many; one of them is he who becomes a sacrifice for you at the Kaaba.

3. O my heart-adorning, beautiful love, what a piece of the moon you are; Jupiter, the radiant sun and the shining moon are your buyers (müşterî).

4. The deceitful curl is yours, the roguish glance is yours, the bewitching eye is yours; O you whom all admire.

5. Your eye burned the world, wrecked it, scattered it; O calamity of the age, mischief-making is a gift bestowed on you.

6. Every breath of yours brings a hundred-year-old corpse back to life; O you of the smiling lips, how could we not give our souls to you?

7. Nigârî, the beloved is generous to your wounded heart; she gave you her pain, and made it all a cure for you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

In the third couplet one word does two jobs at once. "Müşterî" is both the old name of the planet Jupiter and a word for buyer, purchaser. The poet makes the three bright bodies of the sky, Jupiter, the sun and the full moon, the beloved's "customers": all are buyers bidding for her beauty. The beloved herself is a "meh-pâre", a piece of the moon. The brightest beings of the sky wait as buyers at the door of a piece of the moon; the hyperbole (mübalağa) takes concrete form in a scene of buying and selling.

The first and sixth couplets carry an argument around the word soul. "Cânân", used for the beloved, comes from the Persian root "cân" (soul); whoever calls the beloved cânân must, as the name requires, give her a soul. In couplet six the reason rests on the life-giving breath of Jesus: every breath of the beloved revives a hundred-year-old corpse, so it makes no sense to hold back from giving her one's soul. Giving a soul to the one who gives souls is set up as a kind of exchange.

The "Ka‘bede kurbân" of the second couplet recalls the sacrifice offered during the pilgrimage; among those who give their lives for the beloved is counted the one who is sacrificed at the Kaaba. The fourth and fifth couplets list the beloved's weapons: the deceitful curl, the roguish glance, the bewitching eye; the eye has burned and wrecked the world, and mischief is a gift to her. The last couplet finds a consolation within this ruin: the beloved has given her pain, but the pain itself has become the cure. The "cânân" and "cân" of the opening couplet stand side by side in the rhyme as well; the other rhymes (kurbân, tâbân, hayrân, devrân, handân, dermân) join them on "-ân" before the refrain "sana" (to you). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün".

Bibliography

Online sources